I’ve been writing life stories since I was a distracted fourth grade student in Mrs. Edinger’s class. Multiplication tables couldn’t hold a candle to what was going on in my head. Since then I’ve published articles in numerous papers and am currently working on my first book. To visit my site, please click here.

Once I named them I knew I was screwed. They were two slimy slate-colored lizards that seemed to have found Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leftover steroid powder and noshed on it until they had grown the size of tiny dinosaurs.

Iggy and Pop had claimed my garage as their home, and, mind you, for two prehistoric lizards the size of small rats, my garage, with its mountains of neglected clutter (mostly a gravesite for my husband’s unresolved pack rat issues) was the perfect spot.In there they left puddles of urine the size of Lake Eerie and plenty of the other stuff and generally made a heck of a lot of noise with the sole objective of announcing that this house was indeed theirs.It was as if I was unwillingly cast in a Steven Speilberg film.I was most definitely irked, but took the erroneous route of a lenient parent and allowed the ruckus to continue.And of course, like I mentioned, I had named them.

Then Iggy started getting sassy.He chose his favorite spot to be the corner of my garage fridge, a lifeline to me considering I’ve yet to purchase my dream fridge the size of a school bus.Consequently, I visit my garage fridge (Lucinda, for those who are wondering) quite frequently and now, each time I entered the garage, Lucinda had an unsolicited courter by her side.

It’s not like Iggy would scamper off in a lizard-appropriate panic each time I entered.(As a South Floridian, one grudgingly becomes an expert on proper lizard behavior.)No, Iggy would look up, roll his eyes (yes, roll his eyes, I now know lizards are capable of doing this) and look irked, bored, and interrupted at the same time.I knew right then and there that Iggy had to be a teenager.

You’d be correct to guess Iggy wouldn’t move.Not even flinch.In fact, quite the opposite, the one speeding along as to not impose was me.

Quick!I’d open Lucinda and grab the bar of butter for my Pineapple Upside cake.

Quick!I’d grab the large tub of sour cream for the festively rich Ginger Kugel.

On and on it went with Iggy witnessing my hurried visits for culinary completion and not giving a crap.Or rather, leaving quite a lot of them on my floor.

Friends and family were subjected to my latest garage obsession.Some were compassionate (“ahhh, how cute… I love lizards!”) Obviously these were not South Floridians.Some were practical (“get a cat”), some were even more practical (“start out by cleaning that disgusting garage”) and then there was my husband Yeshua, who just matter-of-factly and with a terrible Italian accent asked “Ya wan me to get rid of dem? Ai take care of it for ya.”My husband’s “to-do” list is quite long and neglected but something about that cheesy accent coupled with the disconcerting Jack Nicholson The Shinning sparkle in his eye told me he would get serious pleasure out of this.I didn’t want our relationship to go down those murky moral waters.

Like I said, I had named them, and anything I name that is still alive is hard for me to destroy, even a set of adolescent and infuriating lizards.No, I had to do something else.There had to be some other way.I sought the help of the higher God, Google, (or as my son always says, “let’s see what The Google says”) and typed in the search box:“how to get rid of lizards in your garage.”It couldn’t hurt to ask the world.

The world produced many cat advocates and a lot of creepy talk about some white poison purchasable only in India, but there were also strange mumblings about eggshells as a deterrent and instantly I was intrigued.Eggshells, it appears, would send my teenagers elsewhere.Someone said it was one of the components of the shell that had a smell they didn’t like. Others offered the explanation of the shell appearing to be a bird’s egg, something they apparently don’t like (?)Experts abounded.One reader wrote: ‘Make a project out of it.Rinse your eggshells after using, allow to dry, and crack into many pieces.Then glue these on a piece of cardboard paper and color an image around the broken shells.Leave it in the garage and the lizards will disappear.’ This sounded way too stupid to be true, like the kind of email that promises you’ll win a free laptop if you kindly forward yours and a billion of your friends’ email addresses to them.Also, it was way too crafty for me (color a design…really?Who gives a shit?)But as the expression goes, desperate times call for [morally correct] desperate measures and I fit the bill.

Eggshells, and hence, eggs, were now on my mind.Constantly.Grand-slam style breakfasts began appearing on my family’s morning plates in determined efforts to build up my eggshell stock.I promoted the item shamelessly:fried, scrambled, poached, sandwiched, any which way, I was a ruthless egg slut and the shells started building up.Still, I needed something sweet to add to my eggshell conspiracy, something that would require lots and lots of eggs in one go.My cholesterol-laden heart skipped a beat in excitement as I thought of pound cake:the perfect egg whore cake!Lulu and I quickly went to work and were thrilled to add five more eggs to the tally.I was in heaven, my family was suspiciously happy and Iggy and Pop had no idea what would soon hit them.My friends just called me nuts.

In the end I had an entire cemetery of shells.I think I’ve mentioned earlier that I am no Martha Stewart so I did the next best thing and placed the shells, cardboard and glue in front of my 10 and 7-year old kids.I explained their new ‘fun’ activity and, even though they looked at me as if I was from Mars, you can’t put a bunch of eggshells and glue in front of a 10 and 7-year old, spin it with the old “go to town” phrase and not have them go wild, regardless of how wacky the whole thing sounds.

We ended up with eight eggshell collages.And even though my floor was strewn with globs of glue and many a stray shell, I was happy.Off I went to the garage with my hopes high, my conscience clean and my plan of attack.I placed all the cardboard pieces in strategic spots in the garage, leaving the largest collage snug against Lucinda.‘Take that Iggy’, I laughed to myself.

This is when the Internet miracle happened.My adolescent lizards disappeared.Instantly.Just like that.No temper tantrum, no fight, no missing car keys; just no lizards.I wanted to celebrate.I wanted to believe, but I couldn’t just yet.It was too odd to be true.Repressed OCD tendencies burst to my surface as I’d run into the garage sporadically and relentlessly.Once.No lizards.Twice.No lizards.Three times.Nope.My husband’s face turned warm and fuzzy when he saw me jump into the garage for the 107th time.

“You’re going to miss them,” he teased.

“No I’m not,” I barked back defensively.(But I had named them, dammit, I had named them.)

It seems once you let your guard down you realize the Internet is full of crap.Because after three days of no Iggy and Pop, just as I felt the guilt I carried over Lucinda’s loneliness grow heavier (how loudly she now hummed in search of her friend), I walked in to the garage for some milk and found Iggy hanging out with her, sitting right on top of the eggshell collage.Maybe I’ve watched too many Geico commercials but I could have sworn the damn thing winked at me.I laughed, let out a strangely relieved sigh, got my milk and hurried off to leave the two alone.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.
Cream butter and sugar on high speed for five minutes.
In a separate bowl, sift flour and salt.
On low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar and mix until just combined.
Add lime juice, vanilla and zest and blend well.
Increase speed to medium and add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Pour batter into tube pan and bake for 1 hour and fifteen minutes. Top of the cake will get very crusty. If you don’t care for this, cover the pan with aluminum foil 30 minutes into baking.
Remove from oven and cool on rack for 10 minutes.
Remove cake from pan and allow to cool completely.
Dust cake with confectioner’s sugar.
Serves 10-12